The Race for Online Reputation: Implications for Platforms, Firms, and Consumers
研究在线声誉竞赛中相对评分的重要性，发现平台应重点发展中等评分企业，而企业需在市场平均评分上升时加大投入，并善于在行业逆境中超越竞争对手以提升利润。
Online reputation has become a key marketing-mix variable in the digital economy. Our study helps managers decide on the effort they should use to manage online reputation. We consider an online reputation race in which it is important not just to manage the absolute reputation, but also the relative rating. That is, to stay ahead, a firm should try to have ratings that are better than those of its competitors. Our findings are particularly significant for platform owners (such as Expedia or Yelp) to strategically grow their base of participating firms: growing the middle of the market (firms with average ratings) is the best option considering the goals of the platform and the other stakeholders, namely incumbents and consumers. For firms, we find that they should increase their effort when the mean market rating increases. Another key insight for firms is that, sometimes, adversity can come disguised as an opportunity. When an adverse event strikes the industry (such as a reduction in sales margin or an increase in the cost of effort), a firm’s profit can increase if it can manage this event better than its competitors.